More Progress, And Blood Collected

The construction is continuing. The Wolf Guard are basically done, although I'd like to add a little more bling to their models. Pictures will be posted soon. I've had to take a break for a couple of days tho as I badly gashed my thumb - I suppose that it's only fitting that my own blood is the first collected for the Blood God. :)

I've also just realized that I didn't clean off the resin bits I got from Forgeworld, which means that the paint may not stick well. Most of the bits are on magentized arms, so I can just soak those easily enough. I'll have to basically soak the whole upper body of my Thunderwolf Cav, tho, to get their heads and torsos. D'oh! I'll get that underway today, and start soaking all of the unused bits so that they're ready to go.

I think I've found a way to use spikey bitz. Chaos marines have a ton of them, but they make models tougher to pack around and have a tendency to break. I'm going to experiment with embedding them in the bases of my Wolf Guard and Thunderwolf Cav models to theme things up. That shouldn't affect their pack-ability, but will give the models that much more visual appeal.

Grey Hunter Pack Alpha

One unit done!

One thing I didn't really appreciate when I designed this list was just how distinct each model in this unit was going to be. There's only two basic joe's in the squad - the rest have some sort of wargear. And all of the special gear is magnetized, in case I need to reconfigure the squad later. I'm glad I got it sorted before I started gluing arms on. :)

I'm getting a fair bit of glare off the lights in these pics... I'll have to try to experiment with making the lighting more indirect to remove that in the future.

Target Army List Redux

As I was waiting for models to arrive, I kept myself occupied by experimenting with variations of my target army list. For those who don't remember, my original list was this:

Wolf Lord (Runic Armour; Wolf Tail Talisman; Wolftooth Necklace; Thunderwolf Mount; Frost Weapon; Storm Shield; Rending in CC only; Saga of the Warrior Born)
Wolf Priest (Melta Bombs; Wolftooth Necklace)
Lone Wolf (Mark of the Wulfen; Storm Shield; Thunder Hammer)
15 Blood Claws Pack (Meltagun x2; Power Fist)
15 Blood Claws Pack (Meltagun x2; Power Fist)
10-Man Grey Hunters Pack (Mark of the Wulfen; Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Fist; Rhino)
10-Man Grey Hunters Pack (Mark of the Wulfen; Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Fist; Rhino)
3-Man Wolf Guard Pack (Power Weapon x3)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
5-Man Wolf Scouts (Mark of the Wulfen; Melta Bombs; Power Weapon x2; Meltagun)

This list has a lot going for it. However, as I went over the list I gradually became less and less impressed with the Blood Claws. Sure, they're a big scary mob of guys, but:
- they're only WS3 so they'll waste a lot of attacks
- they're on foot so they're slow, and
- they really need a wolf screen to increase their survivability on the long march in.
I tried to trim out some fat in order to cram a unit of Fenrisian wolves in, but I was never that pleased with the results. I'd have to cut one of the Thunderwolf Cav units (which are going to be the centerpieces of my army) in order to free up a Fast Attack slot for what was essentially a meat shield. So, it became pretty clear that the Blood Claws should go and be replaced by Grey Hunters.

At around the same I discovered (via the excellent Space Wolves blog) that Wolf Guard powerfist upgrades are cheaper than the Grey Hunter versions, so some swapping of loadouts was in order. And since I've got the hood up already, I might as well look into keeping the troop units to Khorne's number (8), for no other reason than it's fluffy. Why not!

After much tweaking, here's the new target list:

Wolf Lord (Melta Bombs; Runic Armour; Wolf Tail Talisman; Thunderwolf Mount; Frost Weapon; Storm Shield; Rending in CC only; Saga of the Warrior Born)
Lone Wolf (Mark of the Wulfen; Storm Shield; Thunder Hammer)
5-Man Wolf Guards (Melta Bombs; Combi-Meltagun x5; Power Fist x5)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
7-Man Grey Hunters (Wolf Standard; Meltagun; Power Weapon Mark of the Wulfen, Rhino)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
1-Man Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)
5-Man Wolf Scouts (Mark of the Wulfen; Melta Bombs; Power Weapon x2; Meltagun)

With this list, I get
- 8-man Grey Hunter squads, when you add the Wolf Guard to each unit. Fluffy!
- powerfists on the Wolf Guard and power weapons in the Grey Hunters. More points-efficient for the same loadout.
- plasma pistols for the Grey Hunters. Not cheap but very characterful and cool looking

The only part of the list I'm still unsure of is the Lone Wolf. He's a complete beat-stick, and my opponents'll be hesitant to take him out as he'll give me a victory point. However, he can't deep strike so he's going to have to footslog his way across the map making him the slowest part of my army by far. And with terminator armour, I can't even pop him into a Rhino to hurry him along. I'll have to try him out for a couple of games and see whether or not he fits in with this list.

[edited to remove plasma pistols from Grey Hunters, because I apparently can't count >.<]

Construction Underway

Now that all of the orders have finally arrived, I've started gotten construction fully underway! I taken over a good part of the living room in the process. :)

I'm slowly seperating out the bits and pieces of Berzerker and Chaos Warrior bitz and distributing them around to the various squads-to-be. There should be enough variety to keep each unit distinct, but with enough common parts to keep them contected in theme.

I got the Possessed squad built - they're going to be the marines with Mark of the Wolfen. The original plan was to take some parts (like the arms, etc) and use the basic marine bodies, but they models look so good I couldn't resist. Here are a couple of pics.

As you can see, I also got my photo cube assembled. The pics look a lot better with the right lighting. Here are my Thunderwolf Cav again, with shots taken from the booth.

Thunderwolf Cav WIP

Now that the Christmas busy-ness is starting to ebb it's finally construction time! I was unfortunately not able to get the bulk of my bitz before the holidays (which is going to limit what I can build), so I've had to make do with the parts I have.

First up is the Thunderwolf Cav. They're constructed with:
- a bloodcrusher mount
- the running legs from a berzerker (to give a good seated stance on the back)
- the head and torso from Forgeworld's World Eater upgrade
- weapon and shield from Warhammer Chaos Knights.

The arms are both magnetized to give me some flexibility in load-out, but my default right now is frost weapon and storm shield.

Here're some shots from the first model off the assembly line.

 So far, so good, I think! I still need to get the shoulder pads in place, but you can get the feel for how the model is going to look. I'm putting a lot of the more detailed and crazy bitz onto these models, so they should look fantastic once completed.

Construction of the remaining cav should continue tomorrow.

Hello to the 11th Company!

Thanks to Emphyrion over at the 11th Company forums for the link! I'll try to keep things interesting. :)


BTW, if you haven't already discovered the 11th Company podcast you should check it out. It's a great resource for 40K tactics and info, and has a lively, friendly forum community. You can find it here:


Main web site 
Forums

Impending Construction

Thanks to a bit of an early Christmas present (in the form of an extra cheque from work), I've placed the orders for:
- 2 units of Berzerkers
- 1 unit of Chaos Space Marines
- 1 unit of Possessed Marines

I was fortunate enough to find a Canadian reseller (www.miniwargaming.com), which saved me 20% as well as prevented any potential customs issues at the border.

This (along with the order I placed with Dragon Forge for the remainder of my bases) should give me everything I need to get all of my troop units built! Hopefully they get here soon. Unfortunately, as real life is starting to get crazy with the run up to Christmas I probably won't be able to get much done until the holidays - check back after Christmas for some updates with WIP pics.